It would be unprofitable to enter minutely into all the poems of Chaucer, which arc numerous as well as indi vidually large. Ills Dream, which is supposed to be an cpithalamium on the marriage of John of Gaunt, is an allegory of very childish and grotesque fancy. Ile dreams of au enchanted island, which is visited by a knight, and invaded by Cupid, who brings a formidable navy, and wounds the queen. The knight departs, after obtaining a promise of marriage from the queen ; but returning in a ship, which has the convenient property of enlarg ing or contracting its dimensions, he finds the queen has changed her mind. The knight commits suicide at the news, and the queen expires. While their bodies are surrounded by mourners, a beautiful bird enters, and sings over the bier of the queen, hut returning back, dashes against a window, and falls down lifeless. An other bird enters, and restores the dead one, by putting a seed into its mouth. This furnishes a hint for restor ing the knight and queen, who are revived and married with great splendor. Such was the style of allegory that was tolerated in the infancy of our poetry. It certainly appears, at first sight, to have as little connection with John of Gaunt as with John o' Nokcs, and to be abun dantly foolish.
The Boke of the Duchess is another dream, intended to commemorate the sorrow of his patron for the same Lady Blanche, who is heroine of the former story. lie dreams that he has been led into a forest by the sound of the hunting horn, and that a dog who comes and fawns upon hint, leads him to the foot of a tree, where he finds a melancholy knight, evidently John of Gaunt, who laments to him for the loss of his partner. This poem also is dull, but it contains one description of a forest landscape, in a very sprightly The Assembly, or the Parliament of Birds, is another poem devoted to the story of his patron's attachment. It commences with a lofty abstract from the Somnium Scipionis ; and after de scribing the parliament, or meeting of birds, to choose their mates on Valentine's day, tiresomely touches the amour of the royal pair under the similitude of eagles.
The Romaunt of the Rosc, is a fine translation from the French allegory of John de Meun and William de Lorris, representing the dangers and difficulties of a lover.
The Flour and the Leaf is another allegory, founded on mysterious allusions to the virtues of the vegetable world. The plan of the poem is ascribed by Warton to a French original ; and the peculiar style of French poetry from which it is deduced, is supposed by the same critic to be that of the Chants Royaux Balades Rondeaux and Pastorals, which Froissart and others cul tivated as the provencal poetry declined. The fancies with which this poem is filled, (says the same author,) seem to have taken their rise from the floral games in stituted in France in the year 1324, which filled the French poetry with images of this sort. They were founded by Clenientina Isaure, Countess of Tholousc, and annually celebrated in the month of May. She pub lished an edict, by which she assembled all the poets of France in artificial arbours, dressed with flowers, and the successful poet was rewarded with a flower made in gold. There were also inferior prizes in silver. This fantastic institution soon became common over the whole kingdom of France.
The best of Chaucer's allegories (and we long to have done with them) is his House of Fame, which Pope has so elegantly modernized. Warton has injuriously com pared Pope's imitation to the modern ornaments in the venerable pile of Westminster Abbey. Analogies drawn from one art to another, are unsafe guides in matters of taste, and of all analogies we deprecate those chiefly which are drawn from brick and stone. We will not suffer the later poet to be condemned by so arbitrary a comparison. Pope has not indeed the merit of originality in his Temple of Fame ; it is doubtful if even Chaucer drew it from invention or translated it. 1Vhat is most bold and pleasing in Chaucer's piece, is the conception of the palace of Fame ; of the rock of ice on which the perishable names of grandeur were engraven ; his theory and explanation of the expansion of sounds, spreading in circles through the air like the rings on water, when a pebble is cast into it, till it reach the abode of Fame ; the house of Rumour for ever shifting round. These
ideas, and the claims of the petitioners at the tribunal of Fame, are modernized by Pope with an addition, not a loss of dignity. In some respects, the judgment or Pope has improved upon the original. Chaucer supposes him self snatched up to heaven by an immense golden eagle, addresses him in the names of St James and the Virgin Mary ; hut presently quiets the poet's apprehen sions of being carried off to Dan Jupiter like Ganymede, or stellified like Orion, by assuring him that Jove wishes him to sing of other subjects than of Venus and blind Cupids, and has ordered him to obtain a sight of the house of Fame. Tne ph"osophy of Fame appears in Pope with much more propriety, coming from the mouth of the poet himself, than from the beak of a talkative eagle.
We now conic to his immortal Canterbury Tales. The subject of that work, it will be hardly necessary to in form any reader, is the journey of a number of travel lers, who are going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, and who agree, at the suggestion of a jovial landlord, to tell stories by the way, with an agreement, that the one who tells the best story should have a supper at the common expense on their return. The plan is borrowed from Boccaccio, who first introduced in his Decamerone the dramatic form of novel writing ; but whatever be the merit of Boccaccio's stories, his gentlemen and ladies in the Decamerone are spiritless portraits, compared to those of Chaucer. The Italian poet's characters are true gentlemen and ladies, as similar to each other as old shillings, from which the polish of society has effaced every stamp of originality. in comparing the merit of the different tales, Dryden pronounces the highest pane gyric on the Knight's story, while those of the Squire and Miller have been honoured by the preference of War ton. The former has been immortalized by the notice of Milton himself, viz. the story of Cambuscan bold. The enumeration of the pilgrims at the opening of the poem has no rival in description drawn from familiar life. The groups of Homer's heroes, and of Milton's devils, are more astonishing, but not more perfect in their kind. The scene is full without confusion, varied with the ap pearance of accident, but with consummate art. Never were drawn together a company so completely fitted to be the representatives of the entire state of society at one period. A fine unobtrusive but sufficient contrast is sup ported between the characters ; as between the demure society of the prioress and the jovial laxity of the wife of Bath ; the rudeness of the shipman and the polish of the knight, kc. ; but it is a contrast arising out of nature, not an antithesis betraying intention. The dramatic con duct of the piece deserves uncommon approbation. Among nine-and-twenty travellers, it would have been unnatural and improbable if some disagreeable humour had not broken out. The introduction of two quarreling characters, the Sompnour and the Frere, two descrip tions of the priesthood which in those days were at deadly enmity, affords both a spirited and amusing break in the lounging sociality of the other pilgrims, and an occa sion for the poet to indulge his satire on all parts of the church, by employing its members to ridicule each other. The Frere, intolerant, coarse, and abusive, takes an op portunity of hinting, like a modern methodist, that the soul of his antagonist is doomed to hell. The Soinpnour indignantly, but with far more successful wit and hu mour, tells a story of a canting hypocritical friar, and exposes the mendicant fraternity to derision. The story is low even to grossness, but is very laughable. Of all the characters, the Wife of Bath is perhaps drawn in the strongest and broadest lines of the poet's humour ; and if we could venture to censure Pope for any failure in his imitation of the old bard, it would be in having miss ed the proper aspect of this incomparable dame.